Kremlin: Putin sees Trump as a ‘partner’ in negotiations

Russian President Vladimir Putin sees President TrumpDonald John TrumpGiuliani: Trump interview with Mueller ‘further away’ ACLU calls for Trump officials to hand over info on immigrant children Kushner to join Pompeo for meetings with Mexican leaders MORE as his “partner” in their forthcoming meeting according to a Kremlin advisers.

Putin adviser and diplomat Yurk Ushakov told journalists that they consider Trump a “negotiating partner” ahead of the summit between the two leaders on Monday, AFP reported Friday.

“The state of bilateral relations is very bad,” said Ushakov. “We have to start to set them right.”

The aim of Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki, Finland, “is to begin setting right the negative state of bilateral relations, to agree on concrete measures to improve them and to establish a more or less acceptable level of trust,” Ushakov said.

“We would like these negotiations to contribute to the creation of an atmosphere that will allow us to talk about continuing contact, including possible visits to Moscow and Washington,” he added.

Each leader will have just one interpreter with them for the one-on-one portion of their meeting, Ushakov confirmed.

Moscow was responding to the American president, who said he hopes he can view Putin as a friend someday.

“[Putin] is representing Russia. I’m representing the United States,” Trump said before leaving for the NATO summit in Brussels. “So in a sense we’re competitors, not a question of friend or enemy.”